More Articles

CINCINNATI — An unarmed mentally ill man who died during a confrontation with police was shocked
with a Taser seven times, kicked and repeatedly struck with a baton, all mostly after he had fallen
face-first onto concrete and stopped moving, according to newly released court documents.

Police in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason previously said only that Doug Boucher, 39, died after
he was shocked by a Taser, but they hadn’t revealed how many times or other details surrounding the
Dec. 13, 2009, incident, including the fact that an unresponsive Boucher was lying face-down on the
ground for five of the seven stuns he received.

Now, attorneys for Boucher’s parents and the police department are preparing to square off in
federal court in Cincinnati on Jan. 10. The department is pushing for the case to be dropped;
Boucher’s parents want their lawsuit against them alleging excessive force and unreasonable seizure
to move forward to a jury trial set for February.

Hundreds of pages of newly filed court documents in the case reveal the moments leading up to
Boucher’s sudden death.

Officers Daniel Fry and Sean McCormick were at a Mason convenience store on the night of Dec.
13, 2009, when a 19-year-old clerk told them that a customer — the 6-foot-tall, 300-pound Boucher —
had just made a lewd comment to her, had made the same comment to her earlier that day, and she
wanted him to leave, according to the officers’ report.

When officers approached Boucher, a musician who had untreated bipolar disorder, they testified
that Boucher repeatedly apologized and became nervous before they ordered him outside. When
McCormick approached him, “he clenches his fists and he just screams at me” to leave him alone, the
officer said.

That’s when McCormick pulled his Taser and ordered Fry to handcuff Boucher.

Fry said Boucher punched him in the head twice as he tried to cuff him. A wrestling match ensued
before McCormick yelled for Fry to move and shocked Boucher in the chest with the Taser, causing
him to fall to his knees.

The officers said Boucher then spotted the clerk outside, got up and ran toward her while
yelling.

That’s when Fry pulled his Taser and zapped Boucher in the back, causing him to fall hard,
face-first onto the pavement, landing with his hands underneath him and out of the officers’
view.

McCormick ordered Fry to stun him twice more with the Taser. Information downloaded from the
device showed that Fry used the Taser on Boucher six times in a 75-second period — five times after
he had stopped moving.

A third officer, Bradley Walker, testified that when he arrived, he saw McCormick hit a
motionless Boucher with a baton about five times and saw Fry use the Taser on him once.

The officers pulled Boucher’s arms out to his sides, handcuffed him twice, patted him down and
turned him over, only to find that he wasn’t breathing and his face was covered in blood. Boucher
was dead minutes later despite attempts to revive him.

Butler County Deputy Coroner James Swinehart found that Boucher did not have alcohol or drugs in
his system and died from the fall, although he said he couldn’t rule out that the seven Taser stuns
were a factor.

Fry and McCormick said their use of force was appropriate, given that they couldn’t see Boucher’s
hands, that he had punched one of them and had been running toward the clerk.

Neither officer was disciplined, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation cleared both of
wrongdoing.

Jennifer Branch, the Boucher family’s attorney, said that the situation never should have
happened, that Boucher should have been allowed to get in his car and leave because making a lewd
comment is not a criminal offense. But even after the alleged assault on Fry, Branch said, the use
of force was inappropriate.

“You cannot kick someone,
tase them five times, and beat them with a baton if they’re passive,” she said.